I've always found rag-tag bands of warriors far more interesting than the uniform rank and file of the military armies such as Space Marines or Imperial Guard (now Astra Militarum) or massed hordes of Orks. With The Inquisition I think I have found the middle ground I've been looking for with some added spice in the form of some Assassins...
The Heretical
The Inquisition has some key negatives when it comes to building an army:
- Force Organisational Chart - 2 HQ, 3 Elites - limits the number of units you can field
- Not very tough - basically T3 across the board
- Generally poor armour - an Acolyte can be upgraded to Power Armour but costing the same as a Tactical Marine but worse stats and rules
- No access to Fortifications, Lords of War or Forge World goodies
- Limited Anti-Air capability
The Divine
However, Inquisition also have some awesome positives:- Cheap access to special and heavy weapons
- Cheap access to psykers for Divination/Telepathy
- Psybolt/Psyflame ammo (added strength to vehicle weapons)
- Psyk-out/Rad/Psychotroke grenades - great anti-melee, if a bit random
- A lot of invulnerable saves
- Priests - often providing rerolls to hit/wound/save
- Jokaero (monkeys!) - providing random but powerful powerups to their unit
This all adds up to provide a lot of synergy but there's one more key point that helps them out - they're part of the Forces of the Imperium so have access to some awesome allies. I'm creating this list with the rules followed by the big tournaments in mind, limiting myself to two sources, so the allies I have in mind are the new Assassins Formation.
Army building
When building any army you should take units that are able to do the following:- Kill tanks
- Kill high Toughness. Monstrous Creatures
- Kill massed troops
- Kill flying Vehicles and Monstrous Creatures
- Take Objectives - i.e. mobility
If you can't do any one of these then you will inevitably meet an army you can't deal with.
As an added bonus, access to AP2 and 3 can make the difference when fighting Space Marine armies.
The army
So, my focus is to fill the above requirements, exploit the armies positives and offset the negatives as much as possible. With some helpful guidance from Reece and Frankie at Frontline Gaming I think I've got a solid idea of what I need to do to be competitive.
Every unit will:
- Take a Dedicated Transport to boost the unit count and provide durability
- Pack some serious fire power
- Contain one or more power up to offset the average stats
At a glance the army doesn't look all that scary but the Assassins Formation is the key. Together, the army presents too many threats in their face to realistically deal with and anything that's ignored will wreak havoc.
1850 Inquisition/Assassins
Henchmen unit 1 - Melee death squad
[Warlord] Xenos Inquisitor – Rad, Psychotroke, Psyker (ML1), Force Sword, Power armour, Liber Heresius (hopefully Scouts the Redeemer, provides special grenades plus Divination or Telepathy)Landraider Redeemer – Multimelta, Psyflame, Psybolt (two S7 AP3 Templates, S7 TL Assault Cannon and Multimelta will do work)
3 Acolytes – 3x Melta, 1x Meltabomb (cheap Melta to pop transports)
3 Crusaders (to soak some shooting on their 3++)
4 Deathcult assassins
1 Ministorum Priest – Eviscerator (for some AP2 since Crusaders/Assassins are limited to Power Swords, plus Zealot and rerolls to wound from Hymns)
Henchmen unit 2 - Mobile threat response
7 Acolytes – 4x Stormbolter, 3x Melta, 1x Meltabomb
2 Jokaero (hopefully provide +12″ range and Rending!)
1 Psyker (10 points for some Divination)
Henchmen unit 3 - Midfield heavy support
Coteaz (babysits the Servitors and provides Divination)
Valkyrie – Las cannon, side sponsons (anti-air with the unit deployed on the ground probably)
4 Acolytes – 1x Plasma, 3x Bolter
2 Jokaero (again, hopefully provide +12″ range and Rending)
3 Servitors – 3x Multi-melta
Formation – Assassinorum Execution Force
VindicareCallidus
Eversor
Culexus
Collecting the army
For me, this is the best bit of the whole concept. Inquisitorial warbands are packed full of weird and wonderful individuals from throughout the galaxy opening up unlimited options for converting and collecting almost anything I want.
My current plan is to have the melee squad styled as Sisters of Silence - technically they haven't been around for a few thousand years but I figure they could be a "modern day" copy-cat cult. These will be built from heavily customised Dark Eldar Wychs.
The other two squads will be Militarum Tempestus Scions, Sisters of battle, Cadian Servitors, a selection of monkeys and other really old, Rogue Trader era models that are perfect for eccentric Inquisitor henchmen!
But wait...
Unfortunately, there are rumours that Codex Inquisition is getting rereleased in the next few months. Do I steam ahead and build the army or wait and see what the new Codex holds?
This is GW, so the answer to the question at the end is to buy & paint the most basic foot soldiers (to get your colourscheme sorted if nothing else) then the big set piece units like commanders and tanks (because the army lists tend to get written to keep them viable rather than break them) and leave specialists and elite units until the new codex is out so you know how they fit into the force. You'l have to judge for yourself what in the current list is too powerful to dodge the nerfhamer and what the weak points that might get buffed are.
ReplyDeleteIn the mean time I'll be in the corner, weeping for my 20-strong assault cannon line of Wolf Guard Terminators.
Good advice for the majority of armies, unfortunately the Inquisition army is composed completely of Elite units. Even the most basic troop has a wealth of options that may or may not survive an update.
DeleteI must admit though, I don't weep for the loss of 20 assault cannons! ;-)
It's more about avoiding painting the people with special weapons and things like that, if the army rules change you might want to reorganise squad composition on the fly. To put it in a generic space marine context, start with a few tactical marines, maybe a sergeant or two because the rules won't change that much, then head to characters and vehicles.
DeleteAs for 2nd Ed, it was a case of "if you have the cash, you can break the game". Basically anything you can build your entire army around tends to be horrible : Wolf Guard Terminators (Assault Cannon & Cyclone or Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield?) are invincible but can be tied down; one big Blood Angels Death Company was similar, entire Eldar Warp Spider or Swooping Hawk armies are hilarious for mobility but can be countered, Ork Kommando & Bike armies are fun... the list isn't endless, but it's pretty extensive.
That's what I mean though, there's basically nothing that doesn't have a "special" of some form!
DeleteI'm not sure if you're keeping up with 40k but 7th edition now how "Unbound" armies, meaning you can take entire armies of Warp Spiders or anything really, as long as they're legal units. This, I'm afraid, still means you can't take 20 Assault Cannons!
I'm not at all, no. Every so often I get the urge to get back in and then I realise that I don't have enough time for the hobbies I already have. There is some sort of Blood Bowl league here in Lyon so I'm considering resurrecting my Orc team, 13 or so miniatures being within my financial and free-time limits. Blood Bowl remains one of the best bits of game design in the world (though some of the teams are superfluous).
ReplyDeleteUnbound armies sound like a way of appeasing people who want to do silly things. The fun of the 20 WG was that you could deploy it at a tournament to mess with people - technically you'd probably have to cut to about 12 for a 1500pt tournament army. A suitably prepared opponent could however bring 15 Rhinos and simply try to run you over though.
I guess I could cobble together a sizeable SW army again if I wanted to but I got very sick of painting blue-grey everywhere and most of the models look ridiculously dated by today's standards. I'll pass.